Indy Telecom & Industrial Media

While it looks like the oil prices may not hit the $100 mark after all, I did read a rather bizarre article on the New York Times on a proposed Indian solution to help contain the rising oil prices.

M.S. Srinivasan, who is India’s Petroleum Secretary, is as worried as anyone else about the rising oil prices, despite steady demand and steady supply (we’ll ignore the temporary jumps due to oil rigs being closed in some parts of the world due to unfriendly weather in the seas).

His solution?

Why, taking the crude oil off the commodity exchanges, of course. The way he sees it, the speculators are driving up the prices of oil, fueled (pardon the pun) by investors from hedge funds, banks and other financial institutions that have poured a lot of capital into the oil market.

Not that it’s a bad idea, per se, but it does sound a lot like an Indian idea — when something does not work, regulate it until it does.

As a general rule, I’m aware that America’s handling of the “war on terror” (whatever that label means) has seriously damaged the country’s reputation.  However, that was largely an abstract awareness; I didn’t see any concrete consequences beyond opinion polls and op-ed pieces.  Then, last night, I heard a representative of Pakistan being interviewed on the radio.  The interviewer asked questions about Pakistan’s recent troubles with suspension of the constitution and dismissal of the chief justice of the supreme court.  In response, the representative trotted forth various arguments about stability, which didn’t really impress me.  However, when the interviewer pressed, the representative got aggressive.  He said that the U.S. couldn’t lecture Pakistan on the rule of law and sanctity of the courts, when the U.S. itself had established prisons where people could be held without being charged.  He also argued that everything that was happening in Pakistan now was a direct result of the “war on terror.”  Pakistan had been threatened, and had gone along with the United States.  It was his contention that, if Pakistan repudiated the U.S., there would be dancing in the streets, rather than the rioting we see today.

 Frankly, I’m not sure I buy his analogy to the U.S., and, even if I did, that wouldn’t make it a valid argument. However, the fact that the analogy can even be drawn is something that makes me deeply ashamed of how my country has behaved. I only wish that people in actual positions of power would make similar reflections, and put an end to the policies which are currently doing such damage to the country’s reputation.

As a note, posts like this are one of the benefits of eclectic blogging. Normally, I blog here about legal issues related to information security and data privacy. A post like this wouldn’t really be appropriate there. However, given the more eclectic nature of Metlin, I think this post fits in just fine - which I think is a big benefit for this blog.